Page 36 of GR8VITY

Jae-un just has to pull one better. Also not one to back down from a challenge, I've learned, Liz pops it into his mouth like she does it all the time. Only, when she goes to pull her hand back, he grabs her wrist, bringing it back to his mouth. Their eyes are deadlocked as he reaches out his tongue to lick her fingers before pulling them into his mouth. He sucks the rest of the sauce off before releasing them with a pop sound.

Never taking his eyes from hers, he adjusts his facemask back on before dropping his tone deep and quietly telling her, "You're right. That is good."

If it wouldn't make things even more awkward, I swear I'd take a picture of everyone's faces to have whenever I need a good laugh. Leaving her standing with her arm halfway in the air and eyes wide, Jae-un cuts through the circle and starts walking down the sidewalk. In Se stares after him like he doesn't recognize his best friend of ten years. Seong, Yeon, and Minsul wear matching looks of horror. Yoon Ji has his head tilted to the side watching her like he's trying to understand what just happened, and Dav En is frozen solid with a bite of chicken halfway to his mouth.

There's a slight flush to Liz's cheeks as she looks up to me. I shrug and raise an eyebrow with a smile.

She glances down to where Jae-un is practically prancing down the sidewalk. "How far do you think I should let him get before I tell him he's going the wrong way?"

We laugh so hard that Minsul even risks dropping his chicken as he and In Se nearly hit the ground laughing. Leave it up to this woman to ease us out of an awkward moment. I don't think anyone realizes just how much she truly does fit in with us yet.

We're so loud that it captures Jae-un's attention enough to have him turning around. "Are you guys not coming?"

"Oh, we are," she tells him, "but we're going to go this way. You can carry on if you want to."

Looking around like he's actually lost, he struts back to us like nothing ever happened. She snorts softly, probably at his audacity, before she moves to Dav En, gently patting him on the shoulder, "Eat on the go, big guy. We need to get going."

Following her direction, and literally her, we get back on our way. Seong and Yeon fall back, and I can hear them quietly fussing at Jae-un behind us. Serves him right for the amount of times we have to hear that we're idols and shouldn't be doing certain things. Then he's out here licking her fingers clean like it's the most normal thing in the world.

In front of me, In Se is moving from person to person with food and picking at theirs for little pieces when he asks her, "How did you know Dav En would want one?"

She chuckles and gently elbows the man in question with a small shrug. "He's always hungry. It's better to fill him up with the good protein stuff rather than junk."

Yeon cuts through all of us to move in beside her. "Let me carry that for you."

He reaches out to take the bag that she's carrying. Out of the eight of us, he's the only one to offer. To be honest, I was just so surprised by Jae-un's forwardness that I seem to have misplaced my reasonable thinking. I'm sure my other members are the same. It's the first thing that I think we have ever sucked at as a team.

She hands the bag over to him and immediately starts stealing Dav En's chicken, which he doesn't complain about in the least. He even goes as far as to feed her a few bites himself.

After walking for another fifteen minutes with everyone enjoying the spoils that she's provided and getting rid of their trash, she skips out in front of us. "Okay, we're here."

The others all glance around them and then each other before looking back to her. We're dead stopped in the middle of a sidewalk with absolutely nothing of any kind of importance around us other than buildings. I fight my laugh, but it doesn't stop my grin. She catches me and returns it before moving us over to the glass doors of the building to our right. Knocking on the window a few times, she waves at someone inside that we can't see until he's got the door unlocked and swinging it open for us.

He smiles at her fondly before stepping aside to let us inside. Locking the door behind us, we follow him over to his desk of monitors. We stay on the appropriate side of the desk, but she follows him to the other side as he takes his seat back. Throwing her arms around his shoulders, she gives him a squeeze and he beams up at her. I want to say I'm not getting those feelings that Jae-un had at the restaurant, but I'd be lying. The man is old enough to be twice our age, maybe even a little older. Round in the belly and thinning grey hair. I've always been one to respect my elders, but my stomach doesn't like watching her touch him without at least an introduction first.

"I hope you don't mind me bringing company tonight," she says to him, moving to the side of the desk to lean on it.

He scoffs, "Of course I don't. I'm glad to see that you've finally made some friends."

"Well, that's not nice," she teases. "I happen to have a lot of friends."

"None that you ever brought around or even went out with like this," he states.

"If you're trying to embarrass me, old man, I'm just going to have to take a certain bag of food back outside with us when we leave," she says.

He chuckles. "Fine, fine."

"These are my friends," she says, introducing us. I don't like being called her friend, but it's more for our sake than hers obviously. I'm just glad Dav En keeps his mouth closed and doesn't correct her. "This is my omma's nephew, Park Do-yun."

We all bow to him with proper etiquette before she asks him. "How's your omma doing, by the way?"

"She's better," he answers a little sadly. "We're still praying for a full recovery from her hip surgery. Her mind still isn't what it used to be. I thought she was going to launch me out the window the other day because she didn't recognize me at first."

My pretty girl's expression drops to one of empathy. "I'll stop by and see her this week. Bring her some of her favorite rice cakes."

"She'd like that," he replies with a soft smile.

She throws her hands up. "Speaking of food. We brought you the good stuff."